HSUS: Animal Care Around the Globe

Animal care is a core part of our organization, whether it’s the deployment of our animal rescue teams or our disaster responders, our setting up of emergency shelters to help animals in crisis, our urban and rural outreach and veterinary work in underserved communities, our international street dog management, our wildlife response, or the daily sanctuary and rehabilitation provided to animals at our network of animal care centers. Here are 10 examples of such work from 2013 – work that saves lives, and work that would probably not get done but for The HSUS and its affiliates.

Animal Care Centers Helping Thousands in Need

Our animal care centers – operated by our affiliates, The Fund for Animals, the South Florida Wildlife Center, and Humane Society International – provided sanctuary and rehabilitation to more than 20,000 animals in 2013. At the Cleveland Amory Black Beauty Ranch, we acquired an additional 61 acres of land, opened a new veterinary hospital and equine handling center, and continued to provide outstanding care for nearly 1,000 domestic and exotic animals rescued from research laboratories, roadside zoos, captive hunting operations, factory farms, horse slaughter plants, the exotic pet trade, and Bureau of Land Management round-ups.

Jean-Paul Bonnelly
Burros at the Cleveland Amory Black Beauty Ranch
in Murchison, Texas.

The South Florida Wildlife Center built two new pools for migratory and shore-birds. The Duchess Sanctuary finished its 4,464 square foot hospital barn thanks to the Ark Watch Foundation, and offered resident horses an additional six miles of fencing – completing the 1,000 acres of pastures for the horses to roam. The Cape Wildlife Center continued to expand its educational offerings to veterinary and other professionals, and further distinguished itself as a provider of care to fishers, bats, and New England cottontails, among other species. The Fund for Animals Wildlife Center near San Diego, Calif., opened its new 5,400 square foot medical, rehabilitation, and operations center, and recorded more than 12,000 volunteer hours of wildlife rehabilitation work.

HSI Latin America completed improvements and construction of wildlife rescue centers in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. In El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, we partnered with local wildlife groups to build rescue centers from the ground up, providing an alternative for confiscated wildlife to be rehabilitated and re-released. We increased the animals coming into the rescue centers by 300 percent, resulting in nearly 5,000 animals received. In this past year, we successfully released 240 animals back into the wild in Guatemala.

Contracepting Horses and Other Animals

During 2013, we darted and successfully treated more than 100 mares in Colorado’s Sand Wash Basin Herd as part of our efforts to show the value and impact of the PZP (porcine zona pellucida) vaccine for contraception of animals in specific situations where population management is warranted. We have also contracepted approximately 300 elephants in South Africa in an ongoing program that’s shown impressive success since its inception.

Delivering Street Dog Management That Matters, Worldwide

Humane Society International directly reached more than 61,000 street dogs, providing spay/neuter services, general veterinary treatment, and humane education in Asia, Africa, the South Pacific, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Helping companion animals in developing nations, where there are few animal shelters, presents challenges not seen in the United States. HSI’s street dog programs stand at the leading edge of the trend toward humane management of the world’s 300 million-plus street dogs.

Gopher Tortoises Get to See the Sunlight

Julie Busch Branaman/The HSUS

In our ongoing efforts to prevent endangered gopher tortoises and other creatures from being entombed at development sites in Florida, we moved 428 tortoises and 368 commensal species in 2013. As a result of our team’s work, 4,000 gopher tortoises have been spared the fate of being buried alive since 2006.

HSVMA-RAVS Teams on the Go

The Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association-Rural Area Veterinary Services program provided free spay/neuter and veterinary care, valued at more than $1.2 million, to more than 7,000 pets in underserved rural communities in the United States and Latin America, and trained more than 400 veterinary students. In the United States, RAVS staged small animal field clinics in 20 communities on 11 Native American reservations, and veterinarians and technicians logged 40,000 volunteer hours of donated service. Abroad, RAVS provided services to animals in six countries (Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Peru).

Humane Wildlife Services on the Rise

Over the last year, Humane Wildlife Services solved conflicts (or carried out rescues) involving more than 2,700 animals, encompassing 21 different urban wildlife species. This program has singlehandedly sparked a shift in the nuisance control industry, which can no longer readily deny that professional services can effectively exclude animals from homes and other structures without doing them harm.

Prairie Dogs Get to Live on the Prairie

We’ve rescued nearly 600 prairie dogs from crisis situations at five sites, including the floods that devastated northeast Colorado. We continue to fight the widespread poisoning and land conversion in the western states have imperiled this keystone species and thereby the health of our northern grasslands ecosystems.

Pets For Life Expands its Groundbreaking Outreach

Andres Salazar

Pets for Life brought vital pet care services to 12,000 pets, providing 8,773 spay/neuter surgeries in underserved communities in Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Los Angeles. In the first year of the Pets for Life training and mentorship program, funded by PetSmart Charities, we provided mentorship to animal shelters and rescue groups in 10 new cities. The first-year grants made it possible to provide service to more than 9,500 pets and to perform 4,200 spay/neuter surgeries. We’ve now helped with implementation of Pets for Life-style programs in 22 communities nationwide.

Response Teams Coming to the Rescue

The HSUS Animal Rescue Team deployed 19 times and rescued more than 2,500 animals from desperate circumstances. Of the animals rescued, 724 were from puppy mills, 489 from animal fighting operations, and 1,567 from situations tied to hoarding and neglect. On the disaster front, our Philippines-based HSI team led an effective animal-related response after Typhoon Haiyan.

World Spay Day Reaches Unprecedented Levels

World Spay Day, a legacy program of the Doris Day Animal League, continued to expand worldwide. This year’s action featured 616 events, 453 event organizers, 38 countries, and 58,572 spay/neuter surgeries worldwide.

In the future, we’ll be conducting even more of this work. And we know that we can count on you to help these animals in crisis. At The HSUS, we work to prevent cruelty to millions and even billions. But we never forget the individual animals and the people who care about them.